The poem "Futility" by Wilfred Owen deals with the speaker's desperation after the experience of death on the battlefield which leads him to question the sense of life as well as sense of creation in general.

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Essay on

Wilfred Owen,

Futility

The poem "Futility" by Wilfred Owen deals with the speaker's desperation after the experience of death on the battlefield which leads him to question the sense of life

as well as sense of creation in general.

At the beginning the whole situation is indistinct for the reader. The verbal indistinctness points to the role the poem attributes by using only words of someone who is immediately involved in the situation and afflicted by it. The reader has to try to infer, to try to understand the speaker's inside and outside situation, see through his verbal reaction to understand it.

With the imperative of "Move him into the sun-" (I,1) the speaker starts his speech by addressing those who are with him, to continue -after a pause- speaking to himself.

Those who are addressed are around him, they know the situation as well as he himself does, so that he is able to leave the situation indistinct, avoid explicit wording.

This switch of the addressees, from those who are around him to himself already indicates two levels that will be dealt with throughout